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F1

Belgian GP venue under fire over driver death: 'We have seen this too many times'

Eighteen-year-old Dilano van 't Hoff passed away following an incident in the FRECA race on Saturday.

Perez Belgium
Article
To news overview © XPBimages

Former W Series driver Naomi Schiff has insisted 'something has to be done' at Spa-Francorchamps to alleviate risk after the death of an 18-year-old driver in FRECA.

MP Motorsport driver Dilano van 't Hoff passed away on Saturday in the second race of the championship's round at the Belgian venue after being collected by Adam Fitzgerald at the exit of Raidillon.

The incident was eerily similar to that which claimed the life of Anthoine Hubert in the 2019 F2 round at the same corner and also left Juan Manuel Correa seriously injured - though he has since made a comeback to racing.

Other racing series have dealt with serious incidents and injuries at the Eau Rouge and Raidillon complex in recent years, leading to extensive safety changes at the venue.

'We can't keep losing young hopefuls'

But the FRECA tragedy has brought those changes into question and Schiff told Sky Sports F1: "I think maybe this is what is even more tragic about this situation is that it is similar to other incidents.

"We have seen this type of incident happen at Spa too many times now. They have obviously made some changes to that corner to open it up because you have this problem with visibility but also, when cars crash in that area, they have the tendency to bounce back onto the circuit and that's where it goes wrong.

"I don't know what they can do about it without drastically changing the nature of the corner. It is the risk that comes with that track, with that corner, but something more is going to have to be done.

"We can't keep losing young hopefuls. We haven't heard about the other driver involved, we know how that ended for Juan Manuel Correa as well with really severe injuries, so I hope the other driver involved isn't injured."

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